Vibox Element X – Red System Review

Overview

 

Some time ago I looked at a smart Gaming System from Vibox, the ViBox Wildfire Mk3 received a Silver award as it was a good looking well made system featuring premium parts but it was a little lacking in that all important department, Graphics horsepower! Well today I will be looking at another system form Vibox, this system is almost the opposite of the Wildfire Mk3 as it offers good horsepower for a very reasonable price, this then is the ViBox Element X (Red).

The Vibox Element X is an AMD based Gaming PC featuring an AMD FX-6300 6-Core CPU (overclocked to 4.4GHz) and an AMD R9 380 2GB Graphics Card courtesy of MSI. In addition to this there’s a 600W Power Supply, MSI 990FXA-GD65 Motherboard, Thermaltake Water 3.0 liquid CPU Cooler, 8GB of Patriot 1600MHz RAM, with storage covered by a Patriot Blast 120GB SSD and a 1TB Toshiba HDD. All of this a wrapped in one of the most unique cases I’ve ever seen, described as a Vibox Commando Red Gaming Case equipped with a 24x DVD-RW Optical Drive. This is then topped off by a custom internal LED lighting kit (Red) and Vibox’s Lifetime Evolution Warranty – Build Charge, Shock-Proof Packaging, Express Delivery, 2 Year Parts Cover, Lifetime Labour & Tech Support. By default the system ships with Windows 10 Home 64Bit pre-installed.

 

 

 

The Vibox Element X arrived at pcG extremely well packaged in a large brown cardboard box sealed with ‘Fragile’ tape. On opening that (outer) box we find a inner brown custom cardboard box showing off the Vibox logo and an image of the system within.

 

 

Th inner box is rather unique as it’s obviously designed exclusively for Vibox, with their logo and an image of the Commando case (presumably hiding within). Both the left and right sides of the inner box are the same and feature basic case (not system) information. As you can see this case (and system for that matter) is available in both Blue, Red and Green.

 

 

Opening the inner box reveals that the system itself is well packaged with soft foam bumpers left and right. Atop the system we find a Vibox Congratulation leaflet and the MSI Motherboard box that is now packed with all of the system’s relevant accessories. As we can see the system is also sealed in a plastic bag for further protection. All in all I’m pretty impressed with Vibox’s new packaging.

 

 

In the box we find the system’s main power cable and that MSI motherboard box. Within the box are all of the relevant accessories from all of the components used within the system.

This consists of the MSI 990FXA-GD65 manual, MSI Graphics Card Quick User’s Guide, MSI HDD Backup User Guide, MSI Motherboard Drivers DVD, MSI Graphics Card Driver DVD, MSI Quick installation Guide, USB 2.0 back-plate, DVI – D-Sub (analogue) adapter and a Windows 10 Home DVD.

 

At the time of writing the Vibox Element X is retailing at approximately £650 from Vibox and comes with Vibox’s Lifetime Evolution Warranty – Build Charge, Shock-Proof Packaging, Express Delivery, 2 Year Parts Cover, Lifetime Labour & Tech Support.

 

Specifications/Features

courtesy of Vibox

 

* Additional details available here

 

First Impressions

 

 

First impressions of the Vibox Element X are a little bit along the lines of, wow I wasn’t expecting that; what I hear you ask? That case, that’s what! This has to be one of if not the most extreme case designs I have ever seen. Is it good? Well there’s a question, it’s something that you’re either going to love or loathe I guess. I rather like it to be honest…

 

 

Both sides of the case are very similar, but the left hand panel sports a window (well two I guess!), with the upper section featuring a grill where we find a 120mm fan pre-installed. The fan has been set up as an intake, meaning that it’s going to not only help cool the CPU (via the associated Thermaltake Water 3 AIO cooler) but also it will suck up its fair share of dust, especially as there’s no filter! For GPU cooling it may have been better to have set it up as an exhaust IMHO! It’s an extreme design to say the least but it’s pretty cool that the panel sports the Vibox logo. Judging by all of the visible wires (shame) it looks like some (READ: all) of this is going to illuminate too!

The right hand panel sports the same design without the window and associated grill and fan. It also isn’t going to illuminate, no bad thing though that I feel! The panel is secured in the same way as the left hand panel by way of two thumb screws, that are so tight I can’t undo them with my hands.

 

 

The front of the system also sports a rather aggressive design (maybe even more aggressive than the sides), in fact the whole system does to be honest! But again it seems to work, the V shapes at the bottom of the front are very Vibox! The upper section also features an LCD display, that no doubt is going to illuminate also! Above this we find a really rather smart VIBOX logo in silver, that’s actually sunk into the case, impressive!

The top panel opens to allow access to the four 5.25″ drive bays, one of which is fitted with a x24 DVD ROM drive and two 2.5″ bays. The door itself is hinged on the left and closes tight by way of magnets.

 

 

The top of the system also sports another Vibox logo, again looking like it will light up when powered on. Up front on a raised angular panel we have (from right to left) a power button, reset button, drive activity LED, Card Reader, USB 3.0 port, x2 USB 2.0 ports and audio ports (microphone & headphone). The USB 3.0 port is inoperative as it’s not connected to the motherboard as the motherboard doesn’t support it (which is a bit of an oversight on Vibox’s part). Behind this we have a large grill that looks like it would support either x2 120mm fans or a 240mm radiator.

Looking at the bottom of the system we see that the case sits up off the surface courtesy of four sizable feet with additional rubber feet, while at the back there’s a removable dust filter for the Power Supply.

 

 

Removing the left side panel is tricky as, like I said, there’s wires attached for the fan and also for illumination. This is a bit of a bind, but the panel can be placed alongside allowing access to the interior. It would have be nice if Vibox had added some connections (plugs) here so the panel could be easily removed. Inside though we find a well laid out interior space and signs of a clean and tidy installation. We also get a better look at some of the components that Vibox have chosen to got into the Element X.

Removing the right side panel we find a fairly tidy cable install, especially good considering there’s not much cable management help at the back. As you can see the USB 3.0 cable has been stowed as there’s no support on the motherboard which is a bit of a shame! Also the bag of knitting in the bottom left corner is a little messy (although not that visible from the front) and seems to contain rather a lot of (very old school) Molex connectors!?

 

 

Taking a closer look at some of the components used first let’s take a look at the storage setup. Vibox have gone with the tried and tested setup of a 120GB SSD for the Operating System backed up with a 1TB HDD for your Storage/Games. The 120GB SSD is a Patriot Blast with a Read and Write speed of 425 MB/s. While the 1TB HDD is a Toshiba 7,200RPM model.

The heart of any Gaming system is of course the Graphics Card and Vibox has opted for a MSI R9 380 2GB card, a card that’s more than capable of Gaming at 1080P all day long. Although it’s going to struggle if you push on to higher resolutions such as 2560×1440. Of course the card also sports a red theme to go with the build, while the illuminating Dragon logo is also a nice touch. If necessary and additional GPU can be added to the motherboard giving you all the benefits of a Crossfire setup.

 

 

Keeping that overclocked 4.4GHz AMD FX-6300 CPU under control is a Thermaltake Water 3.0 Performer AIO liquid CPU Cooler. This cooler features a 120mm 1800RPM fan and a 120mm radiator. This has been attached to the rear fan mount of the case and is acting as an exhaust. From what I can see of it here, it seems like a pretty good setup.

The 8GB of RAM is hardly visible (above right) as it doesn’t feature any heatsinks, but it is supplied by Patriot and runs at 1600MHz. Note the coloured cables within the black sleeving coming from the Power Supply, would have been nicer if it was all black…

 

 

The real fun starts when you turn the Vibox Element X (Red) on for the first time and when you do you’ll understand what the Red suffix is all about! 🙂 There’s hardly a panel that doesn’t feature illumination! If you don’t like LED lighting then this is not the system for you! At first it seems a little too much and in some ways it is! But, you know what, I rather like it as it adds a little fun to my day and while I was Gaming it just made me smile that little bit more! As you can see the top Vibox panel illuminates red, the blue glow behind it comes from MB LEDs that I later turned off via the BIOS (Vibox should have done this themselves, I feel!).

When looking at the side you can not only see the sheer scale of the illumination but also those pesky blue LEDs. The side illumination is courtesy of two LED strips top and bottom and an illuminating fan in the side of the case. There’s also LEDs illuminating the Vibox logo on the side although they’re a little weak, making the lighting only subtle, but hey that’s no bad thing, right! 😉

 

 

The real showpiece though is the front of the case, as it really does look pretty awesome. I do not know whether this case has been designed for/by Vibox but the illuminating V shapes at the front are genius! 😉 Then we have the red LCD display taking centre stage showing off temperature, fan speed and system up time as well as featuring an animated fan logo. The temperature displayed is only the interior case temp, but what’s lees impressive is that the fan speed is constant (1000RPM) as it’s actually not connected. Vibox need to sort this, but claim it’s a limitation due to the cases’ fans only being 3-pin.

 

If you ever wanted a system to show off to your friends, then the Vibox Element X (RED) may just be it, it’s far from subtle, some may even say is garish. But as I’ve already said i think its simply fun. And for that reason alone, I rather like it! 🙂

 

Testing Methodology/Setup

 

After some initial testing with Windows 10 it was time to push the Vibox Element X through our suite of Gaming benchmarks. All of these benchmarks were run at stock settings (i.e. the PC was in the same state that it was sent to us in, no modifications were performed).

 

Benchmarks Used:

 

 

Games played during testing:

• Fallout 4
• The Talos Principle
• The Forest (ALPHA)

 

Hardware Performance

 

• Vibox Element X Gaming PC Results – (stock settings)

Benchmark	Result
Batman: Arkham Origins	118.0 FPS
Tomb Raider	63.3 FPS
Metro Last Light	51.67 FPS
UNiGiNE Heaven	897
3DMark (Fire Strike)	6772

 

NOTE: The Vibox Element X is an overclocked system out of the box. The AMD FX-6300 CPU has been overclocked from a stock frequency of 3.5 GHz to a massive 4.4GHz. The Graphics Card on the other hand is running at stock speeds, so there may be room for some further performance enhancement via overclocking! During testing and Gaming I kept a close eye on the thermals. The highest GPU temperature was around 76 degrees Celsius, while the CPU got to 58 degrees during some Prime 95 testing, which it very impressive and low. Finally it was difficult not to keep looking at that rather smart LCD display on the front, the highest internal system temperature that I saw was 40 degrees.

From a pure performance point of view (and that’s what we’re all interested in, right!?) the benchmarks show that the Vibox Element X is good for any level of 1080P Gaming playing the latest Games such as Fallout 4. But pushing beyond this (2560×1440) would require more Graphics horsepower such as an Nvidia GTX 970 or a Radeon R9 390X. As far as the CPU goes, yes the AMD FX-6300 CPU may not be as fast as an Intel equivalent, but at 1080P and at 60FPS it doesn’t affect the performance of the system at all. In fact the AMD based Bulldozer and the later Piledriver CPUs make a lot of sense when Gaming on a budget. Simply put the Vibox Element X puts in a fine (1080P) performance considering its price, and you cant say fairer than that! 😉

During testing the Vibox Element X never put a foot wrong, there was no sign of instability and we saw no crashes at all. This suggests that its impressive 4.4GHz overclock has been dialled in well. And that CPU was kept cool too by the high performing Thermaltake Water 3 AIO liquid CPU Cooler. Although I did think it was a little too loud as the 1800RPM fan seemed to be at full speed all of the time! The PC was also setup with very little bloatware (actually none!) gracing its 120GB SSD, which is always nice to see.

The only issues with this system in my opinion, is the installation of the lighting, additional fan and the LCD display needs to be improved. It’s all a bit haphazard and I’m sure it wouldn’t take much to tidy it all up a little.

 

Final Thoughts

 

To coin a lyric from a song, the ViBox Element X (Red) is ‘all about that case‘, well; something like that anyway! What we have here is a great little AMD based Gaming system that’s more than capable of running all of today’s Games in full HD. But the component that steals the show is that case, but that might just be the trouble, for some… 😉

The Vibox Element X (Red) arrived at pcG extremely well packaged (well done to Vibox for updating their packaging!) in a large box, that further contained another custom box. Within that inner box we found the system itself shipped with a power cable, all of the accessories from the components used and a handy help guide to get you started.

As you may have gathered the Element X is housed in one of the wildest cases that I’ve ever seen, and that’s before we even turn it on. The case is adorned with angles, clear panels and illuminating sections (red in the case (haha) of this system, blue and green also available). The images above probably don’t do it justice either. But when powered on that bright red glow from the system means that you may end up with random strangers knocking on your door, closely followed by the police, you get the idea! But seriously the illumination is amazing, the question as to whether you will like it, is down to you. I know for sure some will like it and some will loathe it, and of course this is somewhat subjective. But I like it as it adds a little fun to my day!

Now we’ve got past the trouble with that case! We can now move on to what’s inside and it’s all pretty good stuff you know. The Element X is based around an MSI 990FXA-GD65 Motherboard equipped with an AMD FX-6300 six core CPU overclocked to 4.4GHz, this is then backed up by 8GB of Patriot 1600MHz RAM. The toasty CPU is cooled via a Thermaltake Water 3.0 AIO liquid CPU Cooler and during testing I didn’t see the temperature go above 58 degrees Celsius, which is impressive, although the associated fan noise is pretty noisy. Storage is provided via a single 120GB Patriot Blast SSD and a Toshiba 1TB HDD. The all important Graphics horsepower is provided by a MSI R9 380 2GB card, that’s more than capable of modern (max settings) 1080P Gaming. Power is supplied to the system courtesy of a Aerocool 600W Power Supply.

The end result is a system that’s more than capable of Gaming, but only really at 1080P, trying to push beyond to resolutions such as 2560×1440 is really going to push the GPU beyond its comfort zone. As we have seen before here at pcG, while the AMD based CPU is not as capable as some of the Intel parts it’s more than capable of keeping this Gaming system up to speed. During Gaming and testing I had no real issues with the system at 1080P, even playing Fallout 4 on maximum settings was no trouble with FPS in the range of 40-60FPS.

Overall there’s a lot to like about the Vibox Element X system, it offers great performance for 1080P Gaming, it offers great value for money and it’s housed in one of the most unique cases I’ve ever seen. But there’s no getting past that for some, who may be considering this system, it simply boils back down to the fact that it’s ‘all about that case’! 😉

 

Verdict

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Many thanks to Vibox for providing this sample for review